ONGC partners bag 17 blocks under Nelp-VIII

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. | Oil Exploration | Oil & Gas | BSE: 500312 | NSE: ONGC

22 Mar 2010 Evaluate

State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) walked away with more than half of the 33 oil and gas blocks awarded to successful bidders of the recently-concluded eighth round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (Nelp). The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the award of 33 of the 36 exploration areas that were bid under the Nelp round, which closed on October 12.

Of the 70 blocks offered under Nelp-VIII, only 36 attracted bids, with ONGC and partners bidding for 25 — the maximum. The state-owned company and its partner won 17 areas. Among the 24 deep water blocks that the government had put on offer, only 8 received bids, all of which were single bids. ONGC and partners bagged seven, while Cairn Energy of UK was the winner of the other such block.

Of the 28 shallow water blocks on offer, 13 received bids. BHP Billiton Petroleum won three, while ONGC got five of these as lead partner and one where Oil India was the operator. Cairn Energy got a KG basin offshore block.

As regards 18 onland blocks offered, bids were received for 15, four of which went to ONGC. Other winners include Jubilant, Oil India, NTPC and Esveegee Steel. The CCEA, acting on the recommendation of an Empowered Committee of Secretaries (ECS) that screened the bids, rejected Deep Energy's offer for onland blocks in view of very low percentage share of profit to the government.crack crack